Phil Zmood holds a unique place in the history of General Motors Holden as its first Australian-born director of design.
Zmood took up the job in 1983 and held it till 1995, paving the way for the likes of fellow Aussies Michael Simcoe, Tony Stolfo, Andrew Smith and Richard Ferlazzo to follow him into the role.
Zmood actually started at Holden in 1965 within months of a sparkling new design centre opening in Salmon Street.
Within a year he was working at GM’s enormous design centre in Warren, Michigan. There were also stints at Opel in Germany and then later in his career back in Michigan and at GM’s emerging Chinese operation PATAC before finishing his career back at Holden in 2002.
In his various roles he worked for and with some of the most significant designers in Holden and General Motors history.
Zmood’s contemporaries include Paul Beranger (profiled in these pages recently for his role in Nissan Special Vehicles), Peter Arcadipane, Peter Nankervis, Chris Emmerson and John Schinella, the American who led the design of the HQ and went on to do the Pontiac Trans-Am.
Zmood, born in Melbourne in 1943, made global contributions to GM but he is most fondly regarded for the contributions he made to the design of the HQ – especially the Monaro coupe, the LH-UC Torana and the Commodore VT during his stints at Holden.
Of course Holden was shuttered in 2021 and the Fishermens Bend studio went with it, But Zmood had already protected his legacy by donating many of his works to RMIT, the Melbourne technical college
